"THE only fault of the house is that it is semi-detached."
"Oh, Aunt Sarah! you don't that you me to live in a semi-detached house?"
"Why not, my dear, if it you in other respects?"
"Why, I should my semi-detachment, or the of the other of the house may call themselves."
"They call themselves Hopkinson," Aunt Sarah coolly.
"I it," said Blanche triumphantly. "I their name would be either Tomkinson or Hopkinson–I was not sure which–but I the were in of Hop than Tom."
Aunt Sarah did not smile, but the out of her and a fresh row.
"Go on, Aunt Sarah," said Blanche demurely.
"I am going on, thank you, my dear, very nicely; I to this this week."
Blanche looked at her aunt to if she looked angry, or piqued, or affronted; but Aunt Sarah's was totally of any but that of and good-humour. She did not for Blanche's little vivacities.
"Do you know the Hopkinsons, Aunt Sarah?"
"No, my dear."
"Nor their history, their number, their habits? Recollect, Aunt Sarah, they will be under the same with your own Blanche."
"I have pets, my dear–Tray, and Poll, and your sister, and–"
"Well, but she will be there, too, for I the Lees will let Aileen come to me, now that I am to be by Arthur," and Blanche's voice quivered, but she to it through. "Did you see any of the Hopkinsons when you to look at the house?"
"Yes, they in at their door just as I in at yours. The mother, as I suppose, and two daughters, and a little boy."
"Oh dear me! a little boy, who will always be at the and making me jump; who will always be playing Partant la Syrie; and the mother–"
"Well, what will she do to your Highness?"
"She will be fat, wear mittens–thick, mittens–and to know what I have for dinner every day."
There was a silence, another of and a turn of the mesh, and then Aunt Sarah said in her most tone:
"I often think, my dear, that it is a great you are so imaginative, and a still that you are so fastidious. You would be if you were as and as matter-of-fact as I am."
"Dear Aunt Sarah, don't say you are dull. There is nobody I like so much to talk to. You out such original remarks, such truths, and in a way, so that they do not make the black which vérités produce. But am I and imaginative?"
"Yes, my dear, very so. Now, just consider, Blanche; you this week by into a Arthur was to you, on a mission that may be of great to him. He is to be away only three months, and is as much as you are at the it involves. You that he is going for a year at least, that he is to you instantly, and in love with any and every other woman he sees."
"No, only with that woman with the name that he used to with; a very woman, Aunt Sarah."
"That he is to be in the to Folkestone, off Antwerp, and die of a at Berlin; and that in the meanwhile you are to have a child immediately, soon after, a very confinement, of consumption, and other maladies," Aunt Sarah in her tone. "Now, if those are not imaginings, Blanche, I do not know what are."
"They plausible, though; and, I you, Aunt, I did not them; they themselves, and they look very like the ordinary of life. However, I it is a to look to that may not occur; but then, you know, I am ill. I had these when I was strong, and Arthur's going away has them all black. And now as to my fastidiousness."
"You always were fastidious, my child, easily by the want of and refinement, and I am not much surprised," added Aunt Sarah, as she looked at her niece. There was something in the of Blanche's features; every that passed through her mind might be read in her and lips; she looked too for with the of life.
"I will allow you have some right to be fastidious, darling; and it is only it with your that I object to it. But you say you cannot go and with Lord Chesterton, he calls you 'Blanket,' and thinks it a good joke; with your sister-in-law, Lady Elinor, Sir William is of money, and you he will say that you cost him at least seventeen and four-pence a day; with your Aunt Carey, the doctor who would you boots, and calls you my Lady; and now you object to a house that all your friends and your doctor recommend, it is possible that your next-door neighbour may play on the piano-forte and wear black mittens. Dear Blanche, this is what I call over-fastidiousness; and now I have my ten rows, and said all the I think of, so I will go, and you to think how and particular old Aunt Sarah is."
"You know I shall think no such thing," said Blanche, and laughing, "but you must own, Aunt Sarah, that when you all my together, they are amusing–wrong, if you please, but amusing. However, I will try to reform, and if Arthur Pleasance, which he is gone to see, and if Dr. Ayscough in me out of London, I will myself in my semi-detached villa, and try to into the Hopkinson set."
It may be from the above that Blanche was spoiled, but she was charming, nevertheless–sweet-tempered and playful, and with high spirits, now by the from her husband, to she had been married only six months. They were as in love as all are or ought to be, and Lord Chester would have the offer to join a special mission to Berlin, which had been to him. Blanche not it possible that he should her in her very of health. Dr. Ayscough the of her being able to her husband with the and most contempt; and it likely that the great national of Great Britain and Prussia would actually all the light which Arthur might upon them in the of Secretary to a special mission. But old fathers see these in a different point of view from sons. Lord Chesterton came up to town full of for her Majesty's Government in general, and for the Foreign Office in particular; he must own he Clarendon very in his appointments, he might say very discriminative. And he was so in his to Arthur on his appointment, and in his to dear little Blanche, on her of her husband go without her–that neither of them had to say that they meant to the offer. And so it came to pass that Arthur was to go to Berlin, and Blanche to Pleasance. Dr. Ayscough her to London, but still to be of his surveillance; and Blanche, who had been under his from the day of her birth, and who was at all times, for a moment that his was not to be implicitly.
He with Arthur to look at Pleasance, they of it, and when, soon after Aunt Sarah's departure, Arthur upstairs, and that he had actually taken the in the world for his little Blanche, she up to the idea. She one as to he had her next-door neighbours. At he their existence, but owned that there was a small house at the of hers. "But that not signify; yours is a good large house, and such drawing-rooms, and such a conservatory, and a lawn to the river; and there is a and a hedge, and all of to out these who to you."
"Their name is Hopkinson, Arthur."
"And a very good name, too. Hopkinson was the name of the Captain of the 'Alert,' who took me out to the Cape, and an excellent he was; you would have him vulgar, but he helped me through a fever, which on board; and Florence Nightingale herself not have a nurse. I like the name of Hopkinson."
"Oh, well!" said Blanche, "then it will all do very well, and I must to Aunt Sarah, and tell her we have taken her Semi-Detached House. It is of her daily drive."
